Fire Pumps

Today we used the fire pumps to drain the hot tub and used the hot water to melt out the ice under the floating dock ramp.

It was time to drain and clean the hot tub up and the ice needed to be melted so we can put the floating dock in.

So we solved two problems with one pump.

The hot tub water wasn't enough to finish the ice removal job so we had to move the pump over to the ocean and use high pressure sea water to remove the ice instead. I was minding the pump and it was a long boring process so I starting pulling ice out and stacking it on the rocks near the boat ramp.

And then a sun dog can out!

The ice removal process.

We received mangos on our last shipment of fresh food and they are finally ripe and delicious. Mangos in Antarctica!! Life couldn't be better!!

Another Thanksgiving on Ice

There was some heavy traffic on my commute up the hill to my office today!

Every week for house mouse (community cleaning of station) the kitchen cleaning crew cleans the kitchen and then preps garlic cloves for the next week. 

Here is the fresh food walk in fridge with our supply of freshies until the next time the Gould comes back down from P.A.

We still had to work on Thanksgiving but we had an odd schedule that day. The cooks made us a great brunch and then most people helped in the kitchen cooking or setting up the galley for the fancy dinner.

The main kitchen area at brunch. 

The galley set up for the fancy meal. 

Appetizers!

My meal! Not shown is the stuffing/mashed potato platter, the cheese platter, quinoa salad and the four turkeys that were cooked for the meal.

Community made pies, mine are the three apple pies.

Then the next day we had an open mic night and quite a few people performed. Great couple days!

Breaker Island

 Giant Petrel following the boat as we moved to the northern boating area to the other island.

 We stopped by a shipwreck that happened many years ago. It was a tourist vessel called the Bahia.

 Station looks pretty small from out on the water in a little boat.

 Good scramble up the side of Breaker from the landing site. The landing sites are marked with orange dots and a ring to clip the bow line too.

 More Giant Petrel nests!

 And a tern nest!

 In the crack to the right there are two brown speckled tern eggs!!!

 Very different perspective of station!!

 There is a surprising amount of mosses, lichens and other simple rock clinging plants.

 Station from another cool angle.

I've named this one tower-berg.

Jacob's Island

 The first island I went to was Jacob's. It is fairly sizable and took 20 minutes to walk across (scramble across boulders and post hole through snow).

 There were nesting Giant Petrels, which are really amazingly huge ancient looking birds. Their nests are mud, poo, shells and moss.

 They are really big.

 Like huge!

 Such interesting looking birds, I really enjoy watching them.

 Half of Jacob's island.

I like this one's choice of nesting site.

Rec Boating

The ice around the harbor locking us to the land cleared out last week and this Sunday a couple boats of people got together to go out res boating. "Rec Boating" (Recreational Boating) is an amazing opportunity available at Palmer to get out on the boats and tour around our boating area. Yesterday I was able to get out in a Zodiac and roam around two islands. I'm going to post about the islands separately because I'm still going through all the pictures I took in the 5ish hour excursion off station.

 The cornice hanging off our backyard glacier. Note the bird to the right.

 Chunk of ice.

 Leopard seal!!

 Still water and ice, what could be more beautiful.

 Awesome ice formations in the glacier.

 More stunning still water.

Cormorant came to check us out. 

Glacier Enshrouded in Mist

 The ice is slowly melting and moving out of our inlets and harbors. We've fluctuating above freezing temperatures regularly now and have lost about 20 cm of snow pack. Soon this place will be more rock than winter wonderland.

 An elephant seal hauled out on our boat ramp but I didn't get a picture. I'm sure there will be many more opportunities.

 A new arch berg!

So cool!

Clouds on the mountains from my office window

Penguin Camera

The sea ice cleared out for one afternoon and our comms guy was able to go out with the bird researchers and set up our summer penguin camera. Once you click the link, click on the "Torgersen Island Penguin Camera" tab to see the penguins!!

https://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/palwebcam.cfm

A walk on sea ice

A science group needed to take some sea water sampled but we still have a lot of sea ice so a safe path was probed and flagged onto the sea ice. After they took their samples the flagged route was opened up for the rest of station to go on a little walk out onto the sea ice. 

This is crossing the transition zone, where the tides break up the ~30 cm sea ice where it meets the shore line.

 It was a fun different perspective of our little peninsula and glacier.

 It was a good little after dinner walk.  

The arch berg is slowly leaving us.